Pittsburgh Pirates News & Opinions – twitter: @daveplavi

Pirates Guest Relations

As many people, who follow me on Twitter and Facebook, know, I recently had some issues with the Pirates and their, well just the Pirates. More specifically, the Pirates front office.

Let me take you through a little time line, of my history, as a Pirates Season Ticket Holder (STH) (Why capital letters? Because we are given titles, as Season Ticket Holders):

December 20, 2009: M son and I were invited to PNC Park, by a Season Ticket Executive, to take a tour of the facilities and talk about the ‘perks’ of being a STH, and pricing.

March 23, 2010: Paid in full, my first season as a Pittsburgh Pirates STH.

June 27, 2011: Receive an e-mail from my Account Executive, advising me that he had been promoted and I will have a new Account Executive.

August 16, 2012: Arrived at PNC Park early, to watch batting practice, with my son, and was unable to gain access to the left field bleachers.

Well, you ask “What’s the big deal about that?”

Season Ticket Holders have ‘perks,’ and one of those is to gain access to the left field bleachers, for batting practice, 2 1/2 hours before the game starts, which is an hour before anybody else.

Ever since I had been switched from one Account Executive, to another, I hadn’t received any invitations, to any, in season perks (i.e. Catch batting practice, watch batting practice from the field.). Up until last week I hadn’t been invited to any in season perks, since 2010.

Me and my son played catch on the field, after the game.

My son. He, and only he, is the only reason I am a full season STH.

As some of you may know, I live over an hour away from Pittsburgh, and unable to make it to every game. So a full season just wouldn’t make sense.

On August 16th, after getting denied entry into the left field bleachers, for batting practice, I immediately went to Guest Relations. There, I filed a formal complaint.

That next day, I received a call, from the Pirates front office, and were just wanting to reconfirm all of my contact information, to try and figure out why I haven’t been getting invitations to these various events.

This morning, at 8:10 a.m., I received a call from the Pirates, again, and wanted to discuss my issues. We spoke for about 20 minutes, and was reassured they are trying to resolve any issues of communications, between them and me.

Last season, I began to notice things, through out the organization and the stadium itself.

I referred to it, in my state of anger, as the ‘flash in the pan’ of success. The Pirates being in 1st place, at the all star break. People were filling the seats and baseball had been reborn in Pittsburgh.

The bottom fell off, as we all know.

This year, they started out as a team scratching to be a mediocre team. The stars aligned and, at one point, they were the hottest team in baseball. People came, again.

The Pirates became such a hot team, there were record numbers at a Tuesday afternoon game, over 34,000 in attendance.

The service got crappy again.

There seems to be something coinciding here.

In my own opinion, the Pirates front office and in stadium staffing seem to understaffed.

The Pirates are a good team, believe it or not. Even with the recent slump. People are still going to the games and will keep going to the games, if the team is good.

As more people become STH’s and more people come to see the games, on a regular basis, it seems to me that the Pirates need to counter act with hiring more people.

I still await a resolution to the problems, that I’ve had. It’s not an overnight solution, that can be found. It’s just a waiting game, at that time.

Meta

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